1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and method, and a program. More particularly, the present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, method, and a program that enables the detection of fade-in and fade-out more easily.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, frame-rate conversion processing is provided in order to produce interpolated images. In the frame-rate conversion processing, motion vectors are first detected by a block matching method, motion compensation processing then is performed using the motion vectors, and thereby new interpolated images (interpolated frames) are created from before and after images (frames) in time.
FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a concept of frame-rate conversion processing.
In FIG. 1, the horizontal axis represents time (unit is second), and the vertical axis represents a position when movement of an image is expressed in one dimension. The horizontal axis has marks for every 1/120 second. Also, in FIG. 1, a large outlined circle shows an input image signal, and a small solid-black circle shows an output image signal. That is to say, FIG. 1 shows a state in which an input image whose film mode is video of 60 Hz is subjected to frame-rate conversion into an output image of 120 Hz.
In the frame-rate conversion processing, as shown in FIG. 1, the output image is generated so as to interpolate positions (movements) of the input image.
In such motion vector detection by a block matching method, when an image fades in or fades out, motion vectors are sometimes mistakenly detected as images having movements in spite of the fact that the image is actually a still image. In this case, a distorted interpolated image is output by the motion compensation processing using the motion vectors detected mistakenly.
Accordingly, proposals have been made to detect a still image portion that has faded in or faded out, and motion vectors in the still image portion are determined to be 0 (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2007-243627).